


Could Be Worse

by Lexigent



Category: Slings & Arrows
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-10
Updated: 2015-01-10
Packaged: 2018-03-06 22:08:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3150023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexigent/pseuds/Lexigent





	Could Be Worse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesireeArmfeldt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesireeArmfeldt/gifts).



Telling herself that it could be worse was much of what got Anna through her first few months in New Burbage. She could be stuck in a bank or a business that's nothing to do with arts. True, working with artists isn't always easy, but they're all of them easier to take than her nominal managers.  
By and by, she starts taking on their tasks because that's the only way anything at all will get done. Apparently, it's also a good way to get a slightly nicer job title and a nicer paycheck.  
True, she wouldn't mind if the pay rise came _before_ doing lots of extra work and not getting paid for it for six months, but, she reminds herself in a rare quiet moment, it could be worse.

***

Things continue apace, the festival grows larger year by year and so do the teams and their responsibilities. The year they first offer internships in the back office, Anna feels up for mentoring a young person with an interest in the arts.  
Anna never exactly finds out what happened, but from what she can gather, the young person asked what she thought was an innocent question of Oliver on a tour of the theatre and he'd yelled at her for no good reason. 

Anna offers tissues and tells her that these things happen all the time, that they happened to her the first week she started, and to keep her chin up, things could be worse.

At the end of the internship period, the teenager gives Anna a huge box of chocolates.

***

The matinee idol the next year, Geoffrey Tennant, walks off the stage and into a mental institution midway through a _Hamlet_ and Anna has to deal with the press, the subscribers, and everyone else in the office.

It's not pleasant, but at least she's not his girlfriend.

***

There's not many things worse than burying the production, the lead actor and the cast's hopes before the season has even started, but then Richard hires Darren Nichols as the new Artistic Director. There is, it turns out, a point at which things could not be any worse.

Anna sticks a pin in a map of the world that night. If things are going to get worse, they can do that without her from now on.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Could Be Worse [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4307676) by [DesireeArmfeldtPodfic (DesireeArmfeldt)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesireeArmfeldt/pseuds/DesireeArmfeldtPodfic)




End file.
